Law360 Selects Chris Keough Among MVP Award Winners for 2016

(Washington, D.C.) — Akin Gump health care and life sciences practice partner Christopher Keough has been named by Law360 as one of its 2016 MVP award winners.

In a competition that saw more than 1,000 submissions spanning 38 practice areas, Mr. Keough was one of four lawyers selected in the category of “Health” and was chosen for winning “back hundreds of millions of dollars for hospitals by deftly navigating the byzantine realm of Medicare reimbursement.”

In his profile, Mr. Keough discussed Akin Gump’s commitment to the specialized area of health care involving the Medicare Act. He said, “to be successful, you've really got to be able to dot your I's and cross your T's, and really think through things and think through them deeply.”

Among his recent engagements, Law360 noted Mr. Keough’s work on some of Medicare’s most controversial reimbursement policies, including leading:

the representation of 420 hospitals to challenge a rule that reduced the Medicare payment rate for inpatient hospital services by 0.2 percent regarding the adoption of the so-called “two midnight” rule. Of the significance of this ruling, Mr. Keough said, “from the vantage point of the hospitals ... every penny counts, especially these days in the aftermath of various rate reductions.”

the finalization of a confidential settlement between the federal government and approximately 430 hospitals involved in several consolidated cases in federal court, resolving 10 years of payment disputes and various disagreements regarding patients were “entitled to benefits” in traditional Medicare.